


Having A Normal One

by 999blackflowers



Category: Layton Kyouju Series | Professor Layton Series
Genre: Angst, Being mean to wait staff, Cruise Cafe, Gen, Post Unwound Future, eating your feelings, from the perspective of an OC, just a lot of angst, wearing pyjamas in public
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:20:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,630
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25212292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/999blackflowers/pseuds/999blackflowers
Summary: Hershel heads down to Cruise Cafe one difficult night to get a late night meal and to talk with the poor, poor wait staff.
Relationships: Hershel Layton/Luke Triton
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	Having A Normal One

**Author's Note:**

> A/N from 999blackflowers: Hello! I want to note that while this fic is tagged as Layluke because it's about Hershel losing his mind about Luke being gone, Luke doesn't make an appearance in this fic. I hope you enjoy <3
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS:  
> Suicide Discussion  
> Bothering Wait Staff

Cheryl stared out at her cafe. She surveyed the spotless wooden tables and looked up at the hanging lamps secured with thick weathered ropes. She wasn’t the owner of this place, merely the manager, but she ran this place like a tight ship. Cruise Cafe and Diner, in the early morning.

Usually the only people who wandered in here at this hour were drunks or addicts. Despite this they were usually quite easy to deal with, surprisingly? She had found good strategies on dealing with them and politely telling them she couldn’t serve them alcohol, but she  _ could  _ serve them a good milkshake and a greasy burger. Then they’d pay and leave and if they pissed outside on the wall that wasn’t her problem. 

Although the diner had booths, there was also a bar area that closed after 7pm to take advantage of those who wanted to get a quick drink after work but weren’t particularly interested in hanging about, as well as not serving anyone intoxicated late at night. 

It was a Tuesday night though, and no one would be coming in tonight. Surely. There weren’t many people in the kitchen - Rosa and Clara who were chatting away and having restocked their stations and cleaned everything from the dinner rush. 

As Cheryl pondered what she would do once she got off her shift in a couple hours, the bell at the door rang as the large glass door opened.

It was a customer she hadn’t seen here before. A quite short man with a tall top hat, bleary eyed and slowly blinking as he approached the bar.    
  
Cheryl prepared to rattle off her usual speech of  _ we don’t serve alcohol at this hour _ but as she looked down at him she saw that he was wearing an unusually soft looking orange button-up shirt under his tall collared coat. Pyjamas?

“G… good morning.” The man smiled warmly and tipped his top hat. His voice was hoarse but he seemed to be pretending as if everything was normal.

“Good mornin’.” Cheryl greeted, pulling a menu out from underneath the bar and sliding it across. The man took it and took a seat at the barstool, scanning over it.

His shoulders jerked. He was clearly crying and trying to hide it. He didn’t seem as if he was drunk or on drugs, just simply sad. Cheryl pondered if perhaps he’d gone through a break-up.

“Would you like a drinks menu as well? We don’t serve any alcoholic drinks at this hour, though.”

“That’s why I come here.” He raised his eyes to meet her own and looked back down to the menu, scanning it and underlining a couple of words with his finger.

Cheryl turned back to him and passed him the menu-

“Is it alright if I eat here at the bar, Miss?” The man raised his eyes once again. “If I must move to the booths…”

“Eating at the bar here is fine, luv, no one comes here at this hour to drink.” 

“Good.” The man pushed the menu back. “I would like the Cruise Special with a side of chips and a slice of the strawberry cake? With a pot of oolong, please?”

“Coming right up.” Cheryl jotted down his order on a little bit of paper and hurried back to the kitchen, slapping the paper on the workstation Rosa was working at, and gave a call to Clara to start brewing a pot of oolong tea, as the man had requested. She grabbed a teacup and saucer as well as a pitcher which she filled with milk from a minifridge. She placed them down in front of the customer.

Next she lifted the cake cover off a large delicious strawberry and jam cake, pink icing and all, cutting a slice and putting it on an old plate. She slid it in front of the man who had already grabbed a fork from a little blue cutlery cup. 

“Thank you, Miss.” The man bowed his head.

“Chin up, Mr. Top Hat. Did you get dumped? Lose someone?” Cheryl spoke softly. At this time of night, talking to customers was a bit of a comfort. 

The man took several long seconds to even begin his response.

“Not ‘dumped’ as you would say, but… I would suppose my relationship is on pause indefinitely.” He glanced off to the side to avoid eye contact. “And please, call me Professor Layton-”

“ _ Oh! _ ” Cheryl clapped her hands. That’s where she had recognized him! “You were the gentleman who stopped that mech, weren’t you?”

“I was, but there isn’t any need to th-”

“Thank you! If that mech got any further it would’ve killed my cousins. One of them just had a baby.” Cheryl thanked the man despite his pleas.

Professor Layton dipped his head and smiled. “Thank you. But, yes, my relationship is on  _ pause  _ as you might say.”

“I’m not exactly sure what you could mean by  _ on pause. _ ”

“The… person I love is overseas. Indefinitely.” Mr. Layton spoke ever so softly, and just like that the tears began to flow once again. Tears dripped down onto the cake’s icing. Little pickpocks left on the icing and his hands balled into fists as if trying to hold in further tears.

Cheryl felt sympathetic. She’d heard the man’s sidekick had moved overseas and likely the boy’s mother - likely the person he was talking about would also be overseas. How tragic.

“Have you tried calling long distance? Or letters?” Cheryl suggested until Clara hurried over with the tall burger with the skewer through the middle and thick crispy chips on the plate with a little pink and white plaid napkin, as well as an old timey teapot in the other hand.

The meal was placed down. Mr. Layton pushed the cake aside for now to pluck a chip from the plate, dipping it in some supplied aioli and taking a bite. His tears continued to fall down his cheeks, cheeks pink and eyes stuffy, likely struggling to breathe too.

“Professor Layton, it’s alright if you need to cry.”

With the permission, he began to uselessly wail. Cheryl began to feel quite awkward just standing there. She plucked some soft disposable napkins from a dispenser and passed them to him, watching him blow his nose into them. 

This was more uncomfortable than any drunk or addict she’d dealt with for a while.

Once his tears slowed down slightly, he began to talk again. He stared at his full plate and the honestly delicious looking grease slathered burger, beef patty, lettuce, tomato, a fried egg, beetroot, melted cheese, more melted cheese, with a side of hot deep fried chips and didn’t touch it. 

“I’ve had many lovers leave without choosing to.” Mr. Layton rambled, his voice taking on a philosophical tone with a scratch at the back of his throat. “Too many have left this world prematurely.”

“Did they pass away? I’m deeply sorry.”

“The horizon claimed my beloved, but he still lives.”   


_ He _

_ Alright. _

“He said he was praying for the horizon to swallow him in that first letter. And it didn’t, and now we’re both tragically alive but apart.” 

Cheryl had poured him some tea for him at this rate.

“Would you rather be dead?” She asked quietly. Hopefully not?

“No, because then we’d be even further apart.” Mr. Layton sighed deeply. “I wish we’d died trying to stop that mech.”   


Cheryl pushed the teacup towards him before he shook his head once again - and she was suddenly shot a pleading look.

“Please poison the tea. I’m too afraid to do so myself.” Mr. Layton pushed the teacup back. “Surely you have some cleaning chemicals somewhere? I could pay extra.”   


“I don’t poison my customers, luv, sorry to disappoint you.” Cheryl murmured. He frowned.

“I understand.” He dipped his head and took the teacup to sip. Cheryl felt quite trapped here now. She hadn’t dealt with suicidal customers before? But he seemed to abandon that line of thought.

He actually took his plate and plucked the skewer from the burger, but took a knife and fork and started to cut into it. Cheryl couldn’t believe her eyes and went to snake back into the kitchen to monitor the man via CCTV rather than listening to any more of his rambles directly. Clara was giving her a wide-eyed look as she passed.

She needed some water.

The man finished the rest of his meal in silence and drained his pot of tea and slowly savoured each bite of that strawberry cake where he began to cry again. Cheryl had to tell Rosa to not go out to comfort him or the like as he might start being terrifying. But the moment he rose from his seat…

Cheryl hurried back out as the man drew some cash from his wallet and held it out-

“Thank you for that.” Mr. Layton smiled warmly, tears still on his cheeks. “I… apologize deeply for that earlier display.”

Cheryl did not respond but took the cash and quickly calculated the change, passing it back to him. Mr. Layton now looked quite awkward.

“If it’s not too much to ask, I would quite like the recipe for the cake?” Mr. Layton asked with a weak smile. Cheryl turned her head to bark for Rosa to grab her the recipe. They had multiple little placards up with the recipes to take with them across the kitchen, so…

The hefty woman hurried over with one of the cards, which Cheryl took and passed out with two fingers.

“Thank you. Come again.”

“Ah… maybe I shall.” Mr. Layton nodded his head and awkwardly slunk out of the diner’s doors. He left a resounding silence.

Cheryl blinked slowly and considered clocking out early for the night.


End file.
